enough for now
by readingrainbows
Summary: In which the Victorious gang grow up, and are much better at getting trashed than getting famous. Chapter 3: all apologizes: It's nearly two am and Jade is out of peppermint schnapps. Balls.
1. enough for now

_So two weeks ago I start writing this Beck-centric piece, angsty and sort of morbid, about how his life would play out if he and Jade never got back together and he ended up not getting famous. It featured a really pathetic Beck, and to be honest I didn't like it very much, and then I saw those Bade-cowboy-kissing-cuddle-fest videos and I felt much happier, so I came up with _this_ disaster instead._

.

Cat is always the first one there.

It isn't because she particularly likes sports bars or obnoxious men hitting on her, Jade knows, picking her way through the crowd surrounding the bar and raising her hand for drinks. It's because she cares the most, because she's the one who plans these ridiculous things and is, in many respects, the only one who still struggles to keep their already shaky bonds to each other loosely attached.

One of the bartenders notices her snapping fingers and disgruntled expression and sidles over with a grin, recognizing her and already filling up six shot glasses with clear vodka.

"Tough day at work?" he asks with a smirk. Jade rolls her eyes, but keeps her expression good-natured. If she plays her cards right, he may let her off without paying.

"The worst," she deadpans, walks closer and leans her weight against the countertop so her shirt gapes open slightly. "Newspaper publishing is not for the weak and weary."

He chuckles lightly, letting his eyes skirt over her cleavage appreciatively and placing the tray full of drinks in front of her. "Nothins' glamorous these days," he says with the air of a person who thinks they've seen it all and done it all before. He drops limes wedges into each glass, "We're all just tryin' to get by."

Jade wants to growl at him, wants to tell him she really appreciates getting this solid gold advice from a middle-aged _bartender_, and to quit thinking he knows her, but she resists. Jade has lived enough years without special treatment by now to know that quiet courtesies and biting your tongue gets you promotions and free drinks, while being sarcastic and having a bad attitude will get you kicked off of even the most pitiable stage or movie set often and easily.

"Yeah," she agrees, lifting the tray off the bar with one hand and reaching for her purse with the other, "Just trying to get by," She catches his eye and smirks slightly and the nameless man's eyes linger on the tilt of her lips before he shakes his head at her and smiles in return.

"On the house," he offers, just like Jade knew he would, and she makes a big show of being flattered, "Oh, for real? Golly gee, thanks mister!"

Before she rolls her eyes at his eager "See you next Sunday!" and swaggers away.

She cranes her head over the throng of people to find Cat's distinctive hair color and is irritated to realize that Tori is already sitting next to her, chatting animatedly away.

"Hey," Tori grouches when Jade reaches them, tucking some hair behind her ear and licking her lips. Her eyes are securely focused on the tray in Jade's hands, "Is that grey goose? _Please_ tell me it's grey goose. It's been a grey goose sort of day."

"It isn't grey goose," Jade sneers, even though it is, and as soon as she slides the tray onto the table, Tori reaches for a shot and drowns it in a solid gulp.

"Marge," she says without preamble, pausing to suck on the lime wedge and scrunching her nose slightly at the bitter taste, "Is driving me crazy. I accidently messed up her eight o'clock and she made me spend the rest of the day ordering and answering her client complaints!"

She reaches for another one, and Jade almost tells her to wait for the others, but then realizes a statement like that would come under the heading of "caring" or "being compassionate" and although she has changed through the seasons and years, Jade would never be either, so she reaches for her own and allows Tori to go on griping.

"Do you know," she continues after sucking it down and slamming the glass onto the table with about as much force as Jade supposes all thirty pounds of her can muster, "How many client complaints a person as obnoxious and _evil_ as Marge has? _Do you_?"

"Thirty-two?" Cat offers kindly, speaking for the first time since Jade arrived. Jade snorts amusedly and pushes a shot towards the redhead before pursing her lips and drowning her own, reveling at the feeling of liquid fire burning a pathway down her throat to settle warmly in the pit of her belly.

"Hundreds!" Tori exclaims wide-eyed. She flails her arms and screeches too loud. The shrill sound earns approving looks from a group of guys a couple tables over, something Jade really doesn't need right now.

"Shut it," she grits from between clenched teeth, already glaring heavily at the one man who had been brave enough to stand and try to venture to their table. He shrinks back under her intense stare and scuttles back to his friends, who promptly mock his cowardice.

Tori turns her head to see the focus of Jade's vexation, and giggles when she realizes. She runs a hand through her shoulder length hair to fluff it out.

"Isn't it cool though," she grins, her anger and frustration waning away so easily with the help of alcohol and ranting and hot interested men, "That we still get looks like that? Even though we're all old and married?"

Jade snorts diversely and reaches for another shot, realizing they were now down to just one, and would have to go for another round, "I'm not married," she reminds her, poking a finger into her drink, "And I'm not old."

"Twenty-nine is old," Tori insists, rolling her eyes and leaning back against the booth with folded arms, "And whose fault is it that you're not married?" Jade growls deep in her throat and sorely misses the days when this girl was still scared of her.

When she narrows her eyes dangerously and opens her mouth to retaliate, Cat stands abruptly and waves her arms frantically between them going "_no, no, no_!", as if prepared to physically force them apart if need be, so scared of a falling out between them these days. But they are all saved from a fight or argument or permanent parting of ways, or _whatever_, when Andre and Robbie edge up to them with a pitcher full of beer and a tray of tall glasses.

"Hey," Robbie chirps, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grinning at each of them in turn before taking a seat.

"Yeah, hey," Andre mutters, significantly less cheerfully as he slides in beside Robbie.

"Beer?" Jade hisses, looking between them to determine whose bright idea this was. Robbie pulls on his collar nervously and Jade's eyes fix on him, "Cat doesn't _drink_ beer."

"Oh," he says, looking over at the girl in question with genuine surprise and frowning, "Sorry I forgot—"

Jade opens her mouth angrily to yell at him some more—she needs to do _something_ with all this pent-up anger—when Cat cuts in, leaning over Robbie to slosh beer into a tall glass and taking a large sip. "That's okay!" she insists in a cheerful voice, wincing slightly at the taste, "I like it now!"

Jade grumbles and looks away, aware that it was the second time this evening Cat had to intervene to and hating it. There was time, Jade remembers; when she could say anything she wanted to this group of people, stalk away however often, give each of them biting, cutting remarks in turn, and they'd still be sitting at the same table outside during lunch the next day with a spot left open and inviting, for her.

Now things were significantly different. Whatever Cat was trying to rectify, trying to save, was barely there anymore—they had much more history and bitterness between them now than they did when they were sixteen and secure with their futures and themselves.

"Where's Beck?" Tori asks suddenly, breaking Jade out of her musings and she feels an irrational thrum of irritation sweep through her.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she sneers, noting that Andre wasn't seated across from her anymore, that he had probably ventured back to the bar for more diverse drinks. Tori raises her eyebrows coolly but doesn't rise to the bait. Instead she turns to Cat and asks what's new in the world of teaching toddlers their ABCs.

Cat giggles and begins talking, just as Andre comes back with a tray full of amber liquid on ice. For a few minutes as they listen to Cat babble, it's almost easy to pretend they're in high school again and her stories revolve around a psychotic older brother rather than a bunch of little kids they've never met. It's easy enough to see the table they settle around as the couch in Tori's parent's living room and the deep, warm liquid they guzzle as nothing but hot cocoa.

And they're all laughing by the time Cat finishes her story, full-bodied and stirred on by alcohol, by the lack of inhibition and the type of familiarity that comes from knowing the same people for too many years.

It is in the midst of this that Beck arrives, and Jade can always tell when he does, even if her head is tilted back in laughter and her eyes are screwed shut against happy-tears. There's a hush that comes over most people as they watch him enter, the stop-and-stare kind of response that stems more of the confidence with which he saunters in than the attractiveness of his features. It has been fifteen years, and Jade knows him so well it consumes her.

"Hey guys," he says, running a hand through his hair and seating himself beside Jade. He reaches for a tumbler and takes a slow, measured sip. Jade can feel him trying to catch her eye, even as the whole table choruses with hellos, but she bites the inside of her cheek and doesn't look over at him.

From her peripheral vision, she can see him sigh heavily and reach for another glass.

"I should've become a teacher," Tori moans, after saying hello to Beck, swirling the contents of her glass angrily so some spills over onto her hands. She doesn't seem to notice. "I mean, of course, the original dream was to sing, but…" she trails off quietly then, staring blankly down at the table and no one bothers to help her finish. That subject, in Jade's mind, is completely taboo, and she doesn't quite fancy Tori reminding them all of what failures they'd turned out to be.

"Anyways," Tori starts again after a moment, shaking her head and obviously trying to dispel the suddenly tense atmosphere, "Being a secretary is the worst!"

"Well it's better than being a waiter!" Robbie cries from the far end of the table. He's happily smashed, and is suddenly finding the red tips of Cat's hair utterly fascinating. "No one ever tips guys! Only the women have an extra hundred or so dollars by the end of the night. It's misogynistic I tell you!"

Cat and Tori giggle, but Jade rolls her eyes, throwing a lime wedge at his hair.

"The opposite of misogynistic, you mean." She drones, and when everyone stops laughing and turns to look at her like she's crazy, she bares her teeth at them, annoyed.

"Misogyny is a hatred of women. Robbie means a hatred of men, which is misandry."

There are blank stares all around, until Beck clears his throat and speaks up next to her, shrugging slightly.

"It's Greek," he offers as explanation.

Cat, Robbie and Tori erupt in giggles, and even Andre turns to give her a slow, uneven grin.

"Some things never change, I guess." He says, draining the last of his beer and helping himself to more.

Jade glares at each of them in turn and when she reaches Beck, she frowns deeply to she see he's laughing along.

"You know," Jade mentions, staring at them through clouded, narrowed eyes, they quiet down a bit at her commanding tone, and Jade takes pleasure in that. "If I had known I was just going to get stuck with you lot for the rest of my life, I would've seriously considered letting myself become a victim of teen suicide."

And suddenly they're in hysterics; all of them, falling over each other and clutching at one another, wiping rolling tears sloppily with the backs of their hands. They laugh for hours, it seems, open-mouthed with whole bodies quivering and convulsing because it's _funny_ and they can't believe it either; the talent was there in all of them from the very start but the friendship never was, not really, and how ironic that they got nowhere and have no-one but each other.

All laughing and laughing except Beck. He shakes his head and gives her reprimanding furrow of eyebrows.

"Don't say things like that," he admonishes, and Jade is just about to tell him to _calm down, my god, it was a fucking joke you pansy_, when he wraps an arm around her neck and pulls her closer.

Jade huffs, and on instinct, without thinking, she entwines her hand with his where it hangs off her shoulder. And since she's almost directly across from Tori and is still sort of pissed at her from earlier and none of them have stopped laughing at her and she doesn't care much for the girl in any case, Jade swiftly kicks her under the table.

"Ow!" Tori yelps immediately, rubbing her shin and glaring glassy-eyed at Jade, "You kicked me!" she accuses dramatically, standing shakily and pointing a finger at her, looking down under the table at Jade's guilty foot.

She gasps then, teetering violently and falling back onto her seat. Andre, beside her, looks concerned. He pats her on sloppily on her cheek and asks, "You okay?"

But Tori violently bats his hand away with both of hers. With a shaky finger pointed towards Jade and wide eyes she takes in a gasping breath and says, outraged,

"You kicked me! And with _my own boots_! How _could_ you? I've only been looking for them for years!"

There is too much of a screechy edge in Tori's voice, the way it always gets when she's had too much to drink and then gets all riled up, but Jade is so proud of herself for hurting her physically and pissing her off emotionally all in the span of two minutes that about all she can manage to do is smirk and sip her beer.

"They look better of me anyways," she goads and Tori screeches again, this one almost incomprehensible, and sits back in defeat. She gestures wildly at Andre for another refill.

"_Jaaade_!" Cat reprimands laughingly, drunkenly, patting Tori's hair from where she has slunk all the way down in her seat. "That wasn't very nice!"

"I'm not very nice." Jade counters, and beside her Beck shifts so that his other hand is placed coolly on her upper thigh.

"You are sometimes," he whispers hotly into her ear, words slurred very slightly and Jade rolls her eyes and whispers for him to shut the hell up, pressing her head to his, nuzzling.

"You are sometimes," Robbie offers louder from way down the table, raising his glass as if to toast to her, and Jade sighs deeply when next to him Cat nods eagerly in agreement.

"She is _not_." Tori gripes, still upset, but her eyes don't hold very much antagonism, and she cocks her head to the side. "And they look better on _me, dammit_."

Jade snorts, but feels Andre kick her lightly under the table, and when she looks up at him she sees he's holding the pitcher out, and there's just a little left, less than a sip maybe and he slips the remainder into Jade's glass.

"Thanks," she mutters to Andre for the beer and to Tori for the shoes and to Beck and Cat and Robbie who, for whatever reason, don't think she is as hideous and horrible as all those mediocre directors and television producers did.

And Jade feels an inexplicable, familiar rush of warmth; one she doesn't like, one that scares her a little, so she bites her lip and drowns the last of her beer, trying to swallow it down.

Maybe Jade doesn't have red carpets. Maybe she doesn't have thousands of cheering fans and microphone in one hand, an Academy Award in the other. Maybe she doesn't have the record deal and the fan-signings and the movie premiers and the young girls all over the world staring wistfully at their computer screens, wishing they could be her. But maybe that's okay. Maybe it's like what Andre said earlier—some things never change—and Jade, she has friends still, solid and comfortable and ever-present; a group of people she can truly attest have been with her for as long as she can remember. She has several bridesmaids gowns stowed in the back of her closet and even more borrowed-forever-shoes; and she has these—these Sunday nights at a sports bar on the edge of town, golden beer and laughter and stories of regret. She has this comfort, this familiarity and fluency, this complete and utter _fullness_ that starts at her stomach and leaks into every crevice of her being, making her feel alive and wonderful. And she has, has always had in some manner, Beck.

And that's enough for now.

.

_Yeah, so._

_It's actually more gang-centric than Bade centric, and I don't know, I guess I just started thinking that dreams don't always come true—especially not when the dream in question is becoming famous, but I wanted them to stay close friends, like they'd lost all their dreams and ambitions, but they hadn't lost each other, you know?_

_Also, Beck and Jade aren't really together here, in case that wasn't clear. I mean they've obviously still got something going on between them, but they aren't officially a couple. _

_I oddly have another idea for this, and I was thinking to make this into an anthology maybe? Like a series or something where they stay un-famous, but also stay friends (and, yanno, in some cases more than friends) and just get drunk together? They wouldn't be so old in each one, and they'd have a little bit more backstory to them. What do you think?_

_Also, I have the Beck-centric piece mentioned earlier all written out, but idk if I should post it, it sort of inspired this whole thing, so._

_God, I have to stop talking._

_Review, or something._


	2. shipping wars

**Title: shipping wars**

**Pairing: Beck Oliver x Jade West**

**Summary: Because everyone has a One True Pairing—even Beck.**

.

_They're around twenty-five here._

_And…let me just apologize in advance for this._

* * *

"You _know_," Tori drawls, looking from between Cat and Robbie with hazy eyes and an impish smile, "I always thought you two would get together. Or something."

Cat shrieks with laughter and Robbie's eyes bulge behind his glasses as he turns a bright red. He crawls over to the coffee table and reaches for the bottle of red wine, ignores his half-full glass, and chugs straight from the mouth of it.

"_Hey_." Jade growls from the couch above him. She extends her leg out and kicks him on his bottom so he stumbles and falls flat on the floor. "Don't drink out of the bottle. Fucking gross."

Tori giggles happily, rolling over several times on the couch across the room from the one Jade occupies until she herself falls onto the floor with a groan and muted thud. They're all at Tori's new apartment and they'd been there for about half the night now. Tori had only invited them over for a little tour and a glass of wine each, but now it was fast approaching two am and they were steadily working their way through a third bottle.

"It's true!" Tori exclaims, splayed out on the floor, "It's weird that nothing ever happened."

Cat laughs louder, shaking her head violently and choking on her next sip. "No!" she says in a deep voice, looking over at Tori with a grin, "I sort of thought _you_ had a thing going for him, I mean you gave him so much of your blood that one time!"

Tori laughs loudly as Robbie blushes again, but it's slighter this time, and he looks off into space, obviously imagining a world where Tori and Cat could both have "things" for him.

Trina, who is leaning heavily against the couch and basically passed out at this point looks over at Robbie with hooded eyes and snorts callously, "Not even in your wildest fantasies, kiddo."

"Once," Andre begins slowly, profoundly, slouching so low on Tori's couch he's practically horizontal, "…I had this dream,"

"No," Jade says, and it's more of a demand than anything because she has a bad idea of where this is going. But Andre ignores her, sits up a little straighter, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and stares right at her.

"About Jade and Tori, and it pretty much kept me going through all of senior year."

Cat collapses in hysterics, falls back and hits her head on the hardwood floor, but it barely seems to register to her. She curls up into a little ball and laughs and laughs as Tori and Jade look at each other in horror.

"_Never_," Jade hisses, and Tori shakes her head, suddenly looking all too sober.

"Never!" Tori parrots, sitting up fully and turning to glare at Andre, "It's so sick of you to have a dream like that! I mean, we're you're friends! Not cool!"

Cat, in between bursts of inexplicable laughter, manages to croak, "And when you guys get famous, your couple name will be _Jori_, _ohmygod_!"

"Jori!" Tori screams, raising a fist and shaking it angrily in the direction of Cat, "Ugh, why does Jade's name get to be first? I mean it could be Tade! I could be dominant one!"

"They're putting us together as a couple," Jade intones, holding her glass out with one hand and pouring unsteadily with the other, "And you're worried about who's the more dominant one in the relationship."

Tori sputters and Beck shifts from beside Jade, where she had been sure he'd already fallen asleep. "And anyways," he says to Tori in a hoarse voice, eyes so half-lidded they were nearly closed, "Jade would totally be the dominant one."

Jade rolls her eyes and elbows him in the stomach just as Trina starts to get more involved.

"No," she says fluffing her hair out with her hands and shimming her shoulders towards Beck so that her breasts bounce happily, "It should be _Trina_ and Beck."

Maybe if she was less drunk, Jade would have had it in her to get irritated. As it were, she and Beck had been broken up for the past three months, and she could barely find the energy to speak in coherent sentences, let alone get upset over a desperate girl lusting after her ex-boyfriend.

Beside her Beck shudders and shakes his head violently, "No way," he mutters darkly, looking away from Trina and her boobs.

"Actually," Robbie grins, suddenly sly, "I always sort of thought something was going to happen between Tori and Beck."

Tori squawks and crawls backwards as far as possible away from Jade, as if expecting her to suddenly attack. Jade, intoxicated as she was, just shrugs and takes another sip of her wine.

"Me too," she admits, drunk and truthful, and Tori screeches again, shuffles until she's hiding beneath her own coffee table.

"No Vegas'" Beck says firmly from beside her and when Tori and Trina have the sense to look offended, he just looks at them determinedly and thumps a closed fist on the arm of the couch. "Just no."

"WELL." Tori harrumphs, crawling out from under her hiding spot and spitting hair out of her mouth, "I always thought that Jade and Andre had a little chemistry, hmm?"

"_NO_." Andre says from across the room, somehow finding the strength to sit up completely and deny-deny-deny, "NO, NEVER HAS SUCH A LUDICROUS THOUGHT EVER BEEN ENTERTAINED. EVER."

There is a bout of silence, and then,

"Why so offended," Jade asks only half mockingly, slightly hurt at his outright refusal, "I'm not that bad."

"_Not that bad at all, hmm Andre, HMM_?"

"What're you talkin' about?" Beck asks Tori, confused by the way she kept suggestively wiggling her eyebrows in Andre's direction.

Andre grumbles incoherently and buries his head into the sofa, dubbing this a conversation he would not be taking part in anymore and falling into a deep sleep within the next few seconds.

"_Or_," Cat says, eyes leaking over with mirth, looking over at a still very baffled Beck, "I sort of thought Robbie had a little thing for Beck."

Beck blanches visibly and Jade snorts into her glass, on the floor Tori shrieks with laughter.

"Oh my god," she says, turning to Cat, "I thought so, too."

"What?" Robbie yells, eyes bulging out from behind his frames, "Why—how could you—I never—"

"You were always talking about the way his jeans fit him, Robbie!" Tori explains, sloshing more wine into her glass and accidently spilling a good amount onto the floor, "What were we _supposed_ to think?"

"Well his jeans always fit him really well!" Robbie defends heatedly, "So I admire a pair of well-fitting jeans, that doesn't mean I'm gay for the guy wearing 'em!"

Tori and Cat erupted into more laughter, and Cat, who had already been lying flat on the floor, lets out a few feeble chuckles before transitioning into heavy snores.

"Ew," Robbie says pointing to her, his anger and embarrassment from seconds ago fading away, "Also, Cat snores like a man."

"Only when she's drunk," Jade tells him tiredly, and when his eyes start gleaming and he opens his mouth to make yet another stupid coupling suggestion, she quells him with a single glare.

"Go to sleep." She demands, and Robbie whimpers fearfully, scampering back to do just that.

Tori looks between Jade and Beck, noting the way they're sitting a little too close to each other. She opens her mouth to comment on it, but they look nice and comfortable, almost leaning completely against one another, so she decides to keep her mouth shut. She shakes her head, crawls over to where Cat is indeed snoring like a man, and settles down beside her.

"Such a waste of a day," Jade grumbles, watching as Tori's breathing eventually evens out. Her eyes flit over everyone else in the room, thoroughly passed out before she turns to look at Beck with raised eyebrows.

He looks back at her with a heavily hooded eyes and mumbles, "E'ryone else's asleep."

"I know," Jade mumbles back, leaning a little lower on the couch and letting her empty glass slip from between her fingers and clatter resiliently onto the floor.

"Wanna go make out in Tori's new bedroom?" Beck asks suddenly, and Jade shrugs, standing up and offering him her hand.

"Why not."

* * *

_I have no idea why I'm churning ideas out for this so fast. I have something in mind for a third chapter too, but I'm sort of blanking after that. You can leave me prompts. I won't promise anything from them, but you never know when inspiration will strike._

_Cheers._


	3. all apologizes

**Title:** all apologies

**Pairing:** Beck Oliver x Jade West

**Summary:** It's nearly two am and Jade is out of peppermint schnapps. Balls.

.

_Someone asked for a more bade-centric piece. _

_Here._

* * *

She pretty much shoves her way into her apartment, dropping her bag onto the floor and slamming the door shut violently behind her. She isn't being dramatic; she just doesn't want any cold air to get in. It affects her the way it affects no others—it seeps into her skin, deep past her rattling bones and stays buried there for weeks, and if she isn't careful, she can feel it filling her up even in the middle of July.

She grumbles as she enters fully, kicking her bag aside and stomping into the kitchen. It's been a shitty day of work, frustrating and unsatisfying and _long_ and it makes her want to grab fistfuls of her hair and tear. Jade begins rifling through her cabinets and pulling at her layers of clothing at the same time. Now that she's inside she feels stiflingly warm and she allows the overcoat and blazer and sweater to fall on the floor, pool around her feet until she's stripped down to just a Rolling Stones t-shirt and jeans.

For a second she stands with her hands on her hips and asses the little cabinet above her refrigerator with a miniscule glare. Up there, Jade knows, will be a good stash of alcohol, stuff she buys on whim and then puts away for a rainy day, tries not to touch unless there's dire need to.

Today, she thinks, is one such day.

With a bout of effort she barely even puts into her work these days, Jade hoists herself atop the kitchen counter, raises gracefully and then reaches out on tiptoes for that tiny handle to the cabinet that holds her entire sanity, bottle after bottle of clear, bitter liquid that would numb everything for a while, make the entire world hazy and blurry and pretty even, and make her just _feel_ better—

It stands completely bare.

For a second Jade is so confused by the sheer _emptiness_ of it, she nearly loses her balance. She fumbles clumsily and grips the top of the refrigerator hard in her hands, wondering what the hell had _happened_ to her beautiful stash—

Oh.

Tori and Cat had been coming over increasingly often. The last time they were there, Tori had been downright weepy about not getting a callback for her last audition and Jade, understanding the feeling all too well, had offered her and Cat the numbing comfort.

Now she was out. Jade glares heavily at the completely empty cabinet before smacking it closed again. _This_ is what she got for being nice. It's no wonder she tried to avoid doing it whenever possible.

Climbing down from the counter and allowing herself to sink fully onto the chilled floor, Jade considers her options. There is no way she would go out into the blustering cold again—no way—it simply wasn't an option. And there was also no way she would just call it a night and head on to bed instead of drowning all her miseries in alcohol.

With a grumble of understanding at what had to be done, Jade fishes her cell phone out of her pocket and scrolls down the contact list and pressing call.

It rings exactly twice before a deep grumble of a voice answers.

"Jade?"

"Yeah." She pulls fingers through her hair and settles her hands down with a sigh, "Listen, I know we're not exactly in the business of playing friendly exes or whatever, but it's almost two am and I'm losing my mind."

What she really needs goes unspoken, but they have known each other for many years now—too many years now, and the words she doesn't say are just as clear as the words she does.

"I'll be over in ten," Beck answers hesitantly, and then, after a moment, "Any preferences?"

"Peppermint schnapps." She answers, and then hangs up.

She looks around her apartment and tidies up a little, and when she retreats to her bedroom to run a brush through her hair and apply a second coat of mascara, Jade doesn't let herself wonder why.

* * *

He's over in fifteen minutes, not ten, and Jade buzzes him in, heart palpitating wildly.

She feels nervous, and doesn't trust herself to work out the reasons behind it. There is a soft knock on her door, then another, and Jade takes a steeling breath in before undoing the chain lock and pulling it open.

She makes sure to wait slightly behind the door, so that once he enters it's easy enough to slam the door closed again. She fumbles with the lock once he's inside, and when she turns to face him, she's irritated by how good he looks.

Beck has always had an easy grace, a charisma, an effortless sort of beauty that millions of girls would gladly sell their souls to even get a whiff of. The blustering cold only adds to his image—pales his normally olive skin and pinks his nose and cheeks, tousles his hair like a Pantene commercial.

Jade tries not to grind her teeth.

"Hey," he says quietly, and Jade doesn't believe for even half a second that he had been having similar thoughts about her own appearance. Jade knows her place in this story, knows her role, knows her character, and she has never been the pretty leading lady.

He raises his left hand half-heartedly, and Jade is more than pleased to see a plastic bag clutched between his fingers. The bottles inside clink together musically.

"Living room," she orders, ignoring his greeting all together. He nods, used to such behavior from her and walks through the archway to settle on a couch. Jade seats herself beside him and digs hungrily through the bag.

"What, no shot glasses?" He asks with raised eyebrows, but Jade ignores him in favor of trying to twist the top off. The bottle is slightly chilled and heavy in her hands, and when she finally works the top off, a bit of it spills out of the spout and onto her hands.

Without thinking much of it, Jade licks the alcohol easily off the back of her hand before raising the bottle to her lips and taking a quick swig. It's too harsh, too bitter, too lukewarm and it burns a trail of scorching fire down the length if her throat. But it settles warmly in her belly, curls like liquid smoke at the pit of it and starts to fog her mind very quickly. That's what Jade loves most.

When she looks up again, she sees him staring at her with lidded eyes and half a smile tucked into the corner of his cheek. It makes Jade sneer, makes her want to hit him, punch him, hurt him, for looking so entertained for looking so good, for being _Beck_. She glares briefly, shoves the bottle to his chest and watches as he takes his own gulp.

He holds her eyes with his as he raises the bottle to his mouth, puckers his pinked lips slightly and drinks. She follows the pathway the liquid takes down the valley of his neck, the striking bob of the Adam's apple she had become very intimate with in the past, and tries to ignore her heart thrumming like a physical ache deep inside her ribcage.

This was a bad idea, Jade suddenly realizes. He lowers the bottle, gives it back to her and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, still staring at her the entire time. This was bad, bad idea—Beck and Jade mixed with alcohol had never been a good combination to begin with, but joined with the recentness of their breakup and cacophony of things still left unsaid, the current situation is positively explosive.

"That's terrible."

His voice is darker, raspier with the help of the whiskey and Jade raises a single eyebrow at him, taking another swig.

"It gets you drunk fastest," she comments offhandedly, and it was very true. Two small sips in and she was already feeling the weight of the world lifting off her shoulders, the awkwardness between them dispensing as he drank again, the atmosphere less terse, the smiles more genuine as they worked their way through half the bottle.

"God, this is disgusting!" Beck emphasizes for the fourth time, taking another large sip and dribbling a good amount down his chin.

"You're an idiot," she scoffs, but she finds the entire situation hilarious, and knows that he can tell. He leans in closer, grins down at her presses the bottle into her hands.

"_You_ are."

She snorts diversely and the grips the bottle in her hands. It's very heavy, she realizes, even more than half empty it feels weighty and substantial. She turns it over again and again in her palms, but doesn't take another sip.

"I hate drinking," she mutters solemnly, tilting the bottle left and right and watching the clear contents inside swish around as innocently as water, "I just like being drunk."

"I hate being drunk," Beck murmurs from the other side of the couch. Jade's eyes take their time slipping up the length of his body—over his slouched countenance, well-worn earth-toned sweater with sleeves rolled up, elongated neck, mussed hair—to meet hazy brown eyes.

"It makes everything weird…blurry, far away."

Jade snorts, takes another gulp even though she doesn't really want to, just to prove a point and shoves the bottle back at him.

"That's a good thing."

There's a heavy clink and when Jade glances up again, she sees he's placed the schnapps bottle onto her coffee table instead of handing it back to her. He scoots a bit closer, leans in slightly and stares at her in the way that's always scared her a little, sober and serious like he knows the thoughts in her head, like he can see right through her.

His voice is soft, gruff as he catches her eye and pins her place with the weight of his stare.

"It really isn't."

"Shut up," she mutters, looking away, but he leans in closer and closer, leans over the space and time and years between the length of their bodies and nudges his nose into the spiraled softness of her hairline, brushes his lips against the shell of her ear and making Jade shiver deep inside of herself.

"Happy anniversary," whispers Beck, coarsely and roughly, a little slurred but a lot sad, and leans away from her again.

She closes her eyes and turns her head away from him.

_Happy anniversary_, she thinks, and wants to laugh, wants to cry.

"Why…" He reaches a slightly shaky hand over, and places it on top of her own. His fingers are too warm, too big, long and elegant and dark over her own pale and clumsy digits and even comparisons like the length of his fingers to hers make her insecure and jealous.

"Why're you always so far away, Jade? Why won't you let yourself be happy? With me?"

She can't breathe, there's too much going on and she wishes he would go away.

More than that though, she wants to apologize for herself, for him, for them, for everything that's never happened between them and anything that ever will.

It's so quiet as he leans closer, and Jade turns her head to face him, tries to count his eyelashes, long black flutters of hair that tangle together at the corners of his eyes.

"I miss you," he says in a low grumble of a voice, leaning down and resting his forehead against her gentle collarbone. Jade thinks she may scream.

"I'm right here, idiot." But it lacks animosity, lacks hostility. She threads her fingers through his hair and pulls him impossibly closer.

"This is a bad idea."

Internally, Jade agrees. But she'll also be the first to admit that something being a bad idea had never stopped her before: Her father used to tell her Hollywood Arts was a bad idea all the time.

She doesn't answer for a moment, just continues to run her fingers through his hair. She can feel each breath he takes, every constriction of his chest and feels his lips ghosting over the delicate line of her collarbone. She takes a shuddering breath in and rests her head atop his.

"You cut me open, Jade," He says in a whispery warble of a voice. He sounds like he's crying, but Jade knows all too well that Beck doesn't do that, has never done that and never will, "You cut me wide open."

She swallows briefly, shutting her eyes against the emotions crashing against her chest. She's _sorry_, she is, she doesn't know why she's like this and it's not like she wants to be, but she can't help it. She can't change. Not for him and not for anyone else.

"I know," she whispers back, and—_i'm sorry i don't mean to i've never meant to i can't help being the horrible person that i am—_all goes unspoken, but he lifts his head to meet her gaze and stares for a very long time, as if he'd heard every word she'd whispered in her head.

"We're so bad for each other."

"Terrible." Agrees Jade, not meaning it and not believing it. She thinks she was at her absolute best when her hand was still wrapped around his and his nose was buried deep in her hair.

He lifts his head off her neck and she misses his solid warmth immediately: she wants to pull him back, keep him pressed tightly against her for the rest of her life, she wants to _apologize_, tell him she was all wrong and he was all right, wants to ask him if they can go back to the way they were six months ago, wants to wish him a happy anniversary, and warn him never to share any with any other women for the rest of his life.

But honestly those types of thoughts scare Jade a little, she's always been insecure, always been _clingy_, so she bites the inside of her cheek and looks in his eyes an doesn't say anything at all.

It's like he hears everything though, like he can read her mind, like he understands as he leans in impossibly closer and closer and lowers her unto her back, flat against the sofa and makes himself home in the welcoming cradle of her thighs. He settles himself above her, uses his fingers to trace the contours of her face, the slope of her nose, the dip in her cheekbones, the pretty length of her lower lashes.

He descends slowly, agonizingly, lowers his head until it is a breath away from hers and presses his mouth—chapped and trembling and so warm—to hers, and she presses back, responds, kisses, cries a little but thankfully he pretends not to notice.

She doesn't know what's going on, can barely remember where she is—_who _she is—but Beck Oliver is there on top of her again, his weight like a beacon, like a symbol, like a dream, and it doesn't matter, not who she is or what's going on because Jade—

Jade is home.

* * *

_Hmm so just what is going on? It's a series of connected stories, so I do sort of have a rough idea of what happened between them. You'll just have to wait and see, I guess._

_JustTrustMe requested Tandre. I've never written them before, but I'll try for you. So that's probably what's coming up next. _


End file.
